PepsiCo announced the continuation of its global agriculture accelerator, the Positive Agriculture Outcomes (PAO) Fund, by granting 14 business projects across 11 countries funding to address some of the most intractable challenges facing agriculture.
“We’re in a race to reach the world’s 1.5 degree target and, to do our part, PepsiCo has set a range of ambitious PepsiCo Positive goals, including expanding regenerative agriculture practices and building the resilience of those in our agricultural supply chain by preparing them for a changing climate,” said Rob Meyers, Vice President of Global Sustainable Agriculture. “Reaching PepsiCo’s – and our planet’s – goals will require fresh thinking and innovation from our agriculture teams and partners all over the world, which is why the PAO Fund was created to make it a bit easier for good ideas to get off the ground.”
Launched in August 2021, the PAO Fund offers PepsiCo market teams co-investment to accelerate diverse and innovative Positive Agriculture projects. The investments are designed to “de-risk” promising initiatives while accelerating the development of innovative technologies and approaches that can help scale the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.
In 2022, the PAO Fund is making investments in projects that span a range of commodities, supply chains, time horizons and PepsiCo business units, but all are focused on either testing a new regenerative technology or approach, helping farmers build climate resilience, or developing new sustainable “landscapes[1].” Across 2021 and 2022, the PAO Fund catalyzed PepsiCo investments in over 20 different projects, estimated to total more than $27 million through 2026.
Also Read: ZeroAvia Reduces Greenhouse Gases and Drives Toward More Sustainable Air Transport with Ansys
“With support from the PAO Fund, we’ve been able to generate much greater engagement and innovation both at the farm level and through closer collaboration with our global teams,” said Haseeb Malik, Senior Manager of Agriculture AMESA, PepsiCo. “This work is not only helping to advance our pep+ goals in the market, but it’s also meaningfully improving the lives of the farmers we’re working with.”
Projects from the PAO Fund’s inaugural investment are the focus of PepsiCo’s latest, four-part digital video series, “Growing Our Future.” The series looks at how PepsiCo is working with farmers in Thailand to help them adapt to climate change, how farmers in Greece are adopting more efficient irrigation systems to adapt to increased drought, how PepsiCo has partnered with farmers in Punjab, India to develop kilns that can turn their agricultural waste into fertilizer, and how PepsiCo is supporting research in Brazil to help potato farmers improve soil health.